Re: Blueberries -- fresh vs frozen

On 2025-03-19 1:55 p.m., Ed P wrote:

On 3/19/2025 2:05 PM, ItsJoanNotJoAnn wrote:

On Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:10:39 +0000, Ed P wrote:
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Every couple of weeks I make a few batches of blueberry pancakes.  The
store almost always has blueberries and the source varies throughout the
year.  Maine and Michigan are the best, Florida and Mexico are good,
Peru gets us through the winter.
>
Past couple of weeks, the berries did not look great for the price so,
why not try frozen?  I did this morning.
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They were a little bigger, the size is very consistent, clean, ready to
use.  The texture though, not as good as they look.  I guess the
freezing breaks down the inner parts and it lacks density.  They would
look good in a fruit salad, but lack flavor and texture for eating.
Nope, won't use frozen again.
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Evidently, every blueberry I've ever eaten have either
been frozen or are subpar, tasteless blue orbs and
blueberry jam is just gloopy blue sugar.  Even frozen
strawberries and strawberry jam taste like strawberries.
>
--

The flavor is not as intense as a good strawberry.  I mentioned Maine and Michigan, Dave mentioned some others.  One reason they are better is the ratio of flavor to size.  Those berries are smaller than the ones in the store recently but the amount of flavor is the same.  You get the same from one the size of a peas as the once the size of a golf ball.
 I don't buy strawberries here very often.  They look like a nice size but they are picked before ripening.  They do not ripen once picked.
 I do buy Trappist strawberry preserves.  Always have some in the house for the past 20 years or so. Inf act, just had a few crackers about an hour ago.

I freeze 30-35lbs of BC blueberries every year and have them every morning on my cereal.
The flavour and texture are OK for cultivated fruit. I tried some
frozen ones from the supermarket ONCE and they were awful!! Mealy
texture and so-so flavour.